


Stick Around

by batss



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-29 21:37:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6394795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batss/pseuds/batss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rebecca stopped paying her lease, she also accidentally stopped paying rent.</p><p>It's the roommates AU that no one asked for!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The worst thing about an automatic payment failing is the penalty fee the bank charges. It’s like, a punishment for being poor. Rebecca already doesn’t have enough money for rent, and now she has to lose more?

 

No, no, wait. The worst thing about her automatic payments failing is not losing her Hyundai and its roomy interior and sporty feel. It’s Paula dropping her off after work and coming home to see an eviction notice on her door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She sleeps on Paula’s couch and wakes up to find Paula’s older son staring at her, holding a machete.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“A machete!” Rebecca exclaims.

“Cool,” says Chris.

“No! Not cool. God, what has video games done to your generation?”

“It might not have been video games,” Chris ponders. “It could have been the internet, or streaming TV, or having two working parents who let me hang out in a bar all the time.”

 

Greg, who has been polishing glasses and listening to Rebecca tell this story to anyone who will listen, interrupts. “I have a spare room. My dad, he’s in the hospital, and he’ll be there for a little while. You could stay in his room.”

“But… you hate me,” Rebecca says.

“I don’t hate you. We used to be friends. We could be friends.”

“Yeah, but then you teamed up with Valencia to scheme about me,” Rebecca accuses. The idea is not sounding any less stupid, but she does have almost no other options, and she should probably be less hostile, but that wound still stings.

Greg grimaces at the reminder. “I was a shitty friend. But you were a shitty friend to me, when you first moved here–” Rebecca winces “– so we were both shitty friends. We can be shitty friends again. We could be shitty roommates.”

He smiles, lopsided, and shrugs, and that’s how Rebecca moves in with Greg.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Well, no. It’s not quite that simple. She has to vacate her house first, which means selling everything she can and boxing up the rest (but hey, she can afford food now!), and then Paula drives her over to Greg’s, and Greg shows her his dad’s room, and the space amongst his dad’s stuff that he’s cleared for her, and she unpacks quietly, her sadness over material goods dwarfed somewhat in the shadow of Greg’s dad’s oxygen tank.

 

 

* * *

 

 

This is how it goes, the day after she moves in:

 

“Hey, so I had this crazy day at work,” Rebecca starts. “We had this client come in – you know, actually, let me back up –”

“No, no, no, no,” Greg holds his hands up. “We don’t have to do this.”  
“Do what?”

“Talk, and stuff. I don’t need to hear about your day. You don’t want to hear about mine. We can just coexist, and silently repress our resentments until they explode in a drunken rage, like normal people. Okay?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

So for awhile, they are careful around each other.

 

Greg's shifts at Home Base now that he quit and was re-hired are the least desirable ones. He works weekends, late nights, and tries to make it to the hospital at least four times a week. The first couple nights she makes herself scarce, insisting the other Whitefeather staff go get drinks with her so she doesn’t have to go straight to Greg’s place, even though none of them are particularly good company – Rebecca knew she wasn’t already friends with them for a reason. But when the drinks draw to a lingering, awkward close, she finds herself alone in Greg’s house anyway.

 

In the morning, Rebecca makes coffee quietly, while the door to Greg’s room looms in the edge of her vision. She is eating breakfast when it opens, and she’s so startled she drops her toast. Rebecca greets him, cheerily overcompensating for how weird this feels, and Greg mumbles in response.

She regards him from across the room as he blearily pours coffee and scrolls through his phone. His hair has grown out a little, and it’s messy at the back. He's in a wrinkled black tshirt and jeans, like he’s put on last night’s clothes, like his first priority is coffee, and not getting dressed, like maybe he’s done that for her benefit, so he didn’t walk out here half dressed, like he’s trying not to make things uncomfortable. He’s barefoot, and Rebecca looks away. It feels wrong to see him like this. It's too intimate.

 

This is information she could have learned another way, like if she hadn’t ditched Greg at the taco festival, and they’d gone back to her place together, maybe she would have seen this. Discovered that Greg is at bad at mornings as he is at normal human interactions, except it’s kind of endearing.

 

Now, all she can see is how that date could have gone, and she puts her toast down, having suddenly lost her appetite. Greg goes back into his room, mug in hand, and Rebecca makes herself scarce as quickly as possible, and ends up standing on the sidewalk for fifteen minutes waiting for Paula to pick her up for work.

 

It’s slightly easier, the second time, and on Wednesday she knows what to expect: that Greg will emerge, rumpled and bleary-eyed, pour a coffee, and then disappear again. And then on Friday he doesn’t disappear, and instead shuffles over to the lounge chair and sinks into it, cupping his coffee with both hands and humming into it. His eyes are closed, and Rebecca considers him with an unexpected tightness in her chest. Goddamnit, he's kinda cute.

 

 

* * *

 

 

("That's just transference," says Paula declaratively. "From the gratitude.")

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And yeah, the gratitude: she feels impotent with it. Helpless. She wants to buy him a thank you gift but she has no money. She can't think of anything else to do. Greg even cooks for her. He does it without them even talking about it. He silently plates up a portion for her on their first evening together and refuses to say anything other than "It's fine. Just take it. Rebecca, it's fine. Honestly," while she protests.

 

She guesses Greg is used to taking care of someone. He's probably been making dinner for two people since his dad got sick after high school.

(But he's his dad. His dad who he's sacrificed his dreams of college for, twice. What is rebecca to him? Someone who rejected him for his best friend. Twice.)

 

She cleans up a little but it's not like Greg is even messy. She takes his laundry hamper from the bathroom when she goes to do her laundry one day. But that just makes sense. Rebecca doesn't own many dark clothes, and Greg owns just about nothing but, and doing a tiny load of her own darks is like, criminally wasteful. She forgets the basket when she goes down to retrieve the load from the dryer so she just bundles everything up in her arms, and beneath the scent of Tide Greg's tshirts smell like him, a familiar scent she doesn't usually notice unless she goes into the bathroom right after Greg's got ready. She breathes in a little more deeply (she's walking up stairs, all right?) the scent filling her senses, and something hot and dark twists in her stomach.

 

Greg double-takes at the pile of folded laundry she leaves on his bed, and his uneasy gratitude makes her uncomfortable. "It's fine, Greg, honestly. I had to wash some dark stuff and there was extra room. It's fine."

 

She doesn't say that she wanted to do something for him. It feels different, somehow. She's not desperately trying to prove that she's a good person, or prove anything at all. It wasn't a favour. She did it for herself, and it feels wrong to take credit for that. 

 

It occurs to her that maybe Greg likes feeling needed. Not, like, indebted. But if it wasn't for him, Rachel would be fearing for her life from Paula's awful sons, and eating awkward, tense dinners with Paula's husband. And instead, Greg just wordlessly cooks for her, and they move around each other in the shared spaces of his apartment silently and easily, and when he comes in Rebecca shifts to one side of the couch, and they watch TV and drink coffee together, and sometimes they drink beer, and sometimes he looks at her a little lingeringly, like she's surprised him, like he's seeing her for the first time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

("You're talking an awful lot about Greg," accuses Paula.

"I live with him," Rebecca responds.

"You don't need to get defensive."

"I'm not defensive."

 

(She is.))

 

 

* * *

 

 

Then:

 

Rebecca has brought her work home (home?) and has it sprawled across the kitchen table.

 

“So,” Greg starts. “You wanna tell me what you’re working on?”

“I thought you didn’t want to hear about my day,” she counters, confused.

“I don’t. But I also don’t want to be alone right now, so why don’t you tell me about it, and I will listen, and then later you will not tell anyone that this happened.”

He has that half-laugh tone in his voice that Rebecca has come to interpret as Greg pretending something true is a joke.

 

Sometimes it helps to hear things out loud. Something written can sound different out loud. So she indulges him, and then it turns out that Greg is actually not a bad listener.

 

He makes a surprised noise when she finishes and looks up at him.

“You’re a good lawyer,” Greg comments, his voice quiet.

She wants to make a joke, honestly she does, but it’s not the right moment.

“Thanks,” she says, and reaches over her paperwork to squeeze his hand. He turns his wrist as she does to wrap his fingers over hers, his grip just a little too tight. He lets go the instant her thumb twitches, and stands up so quickly the feet of his chair scrape gratingly along the floor.

 

“Wait,” she says, and stands up, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him into a hug. He’s stiff for a second, and she’s just about to pull away when his arms lift and wrap around her, his fingers spreading across her back, and his head dropping to her shoulder with a quiet sigh. He’s so warm and solid and he smells nice. She runs a hand up his spine, up and over the collar of his shirt and the nape of his neck, and Greg’s fingers dig into her back. She draws back slowly, letting her hands trail around his shoulders to rest against his chest, and Greg’s hands settle at her waist, his thumbs stroking against her top. His eyes are so dark she can barely see the hazel in them, and his mouth is red, and she sees a flash of his tongue as he wets them, and –

 

He steps back, her arms falling to her sides.

“Thanks, Bunch. G’night.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

That moment sticks with her for awhile. Things are so difficult with Greg. Going on a date with him and mostly only learning what his mouth and neck taste like. Trying to be his friend. Going on a date with him again and learning too much. Panicking. Ruining everything. Being his enemy. Trying to be his friend again. Being his enemy some more. Being his roommate.

 

If it weren’t for Josh, it would have been a lot simpler. A date. Greg panicking and ruining things, in this version. Never seeing him again. Crying a bit, probably, making some melodramatic comments about men, and then getting over it. See? Easy.

 

But if it weren’t for Josh, she’d never have met him anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes when Greg's working til close he comes back a little drunk. Usually she'd already be asleep, but some nights she gets too in her own head to sleep, and she can tell when Greg's had a few after his shift by the way he tosses his keys on the table instead of pocketing them quietly. He sometimes hums to himself and makes cereal. It's the only time she's seen him leave dishes in the sink.

 

One night, Rebecca's been replaying every awful thing she's ever done (she’s been at it for awhile. She’s maybe 0.1% through) when the carelessly loud slam of the front door jars her from her thoughts. She wraps a cardigan around herself and goes into the living room area to find Greg sunk in the couch. He greets her softly, and she pours them both glasses of water and sits beside him wordlessly. Greg finishes his in one go and Rebecca stands to go refill it for him. She holds out her hand to take the glass from him but Greg reaches out with his other hand and tugs her back down to the couch. She falls back clumsily. Greg keeps her hand in his, and they both sit on separate ends of his couch, staring at the switched off television, silent, their hands joined in the middle cushion between them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Ooh, is that dinner?” Rebecca asks, when Greg gets back from visiting his dad, arms full.

He puts the bag on the counter with a decidedly heavy, un-food sounding thunk.

“It is for me,” he says, voice too loud, too enthusiastic. “I’m going to get drunk. You wanna get drunk, Bunch?”

Rebecca doesn’t, particularly, but Greg looks a little manic. “Sure.”

 

They work their way through a good amount of whisky, Greg pouring with a heavy hand the second her glass is empty.

“Well the good news is you’re not going to have to move out any time soon.” Greg laughs hollowly, his eyes shining a little.

 

She touches his wrist where both his hands are wrapped around his glass, and Greg reaches for her hand when she pulls away. He doesn’t look at her, staring blankly ahead, but he winds their fingers together and holds her hand tight.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Greg catches her the next morning before she leaves for work.

“I’m sorry about last night. I was a mess.”

“No it’s fine. We’re friends. That’s what friends are for.”

“No, we’re meant to be shitty friends, remember?” Greg smiles. “You were a good friend.”

Rebecca’s phone beeps – that’d be Paula, saying she’s outside. “Shit, I’ve gotta go.” She presses a kiss to his cheek, and hugs him quickly. “See you after work?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Greg works late, again, and Rebecca is almost asleep on the couch by the time he gets home, stretched out along it and watching something about industrial production of like, hinges or something. Instead of waiting for her to shift he just picks up her legs and slides under them, his hands resting on her calves as he sinks back into the couch. Rebecca is abruptly and jarringly awake, looking unseeingly at the TV as Greg's fingers drum lightly on her legs, as his hand twitches and flexes and then the full length of it is pressed against her skin, burningly hot.

 

 

* * *

 

 

And taken altogether, stitched together like a montage, Rebecca can see what’s happened.

 

But it wasn’t a montage. It was a series of moments over a week or so of otherwise not particularly eventful days, and that easy physical familiarity snuck up on her.

 

She didn’t realise what had happened until she visits him at Home Base to get dinner and the bar is a gaping chasm between them. He pours her drink and sets it on the bar, and she picks it up and their fingers don't brush. He moves to do something else and there is no hand on her hip to guide her as they negotiate the small space of his kitchen. They talk, but there is no companionable bump of their shoulders.

 

She doesn't like it. 


	2. Chapter 2

Rebecca develops a new evening routine. It involves wondering if she can afford to call a taxi to take her to the supermarket, and then be able to afford the groceries themselves, or if it’s more cost-efficient to just order delivery.

 

Paula was right – thinking about money all the time is _exhausting._

 

She gets up to stare at the fridge again, and she must zone out a little, because she’s startled out of it as Greg says,

“You know, food isn’t just going to magically appear the longer you look.”

“Yeah,” she starts, trailing off.

Greg leans on a shoulder on the wall beside her. She closes the door and turns, stopping short as she ends up almost pressed against him, close enough that she can feel the heat of his chest, and can look at him only in parts: his fondly mocking expression, the quirk of his red mouth, his arms crossed, his sleeves rolled up. All cavalier and casual, like it’s normal to be standing almost pressed together in the kitchen, surrounded by vacant space. Like they do this all the time, and it’s not a big deal, when actually it feels like Rebecca has fallen out of orbit, and is now hurtling into the sun.

Greg clears his throat, and uncrosses his arms, his smirk sliding away into something serious and meaningful. He licks his lips, and she can’t not watch as he does it, her heart suddenly racing.

“Pizza,” she interrupts, stepping back suddenly. “I’m going to order pizza.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Greg corners her, later. He sits beside her when she’s accidentally eaten the half of the pizza that was meant to be tomorrow night’s dinner (you know, budgeting) and is lying on his couch messing with his Netflix recommendations in a sodium and cheese haze.

“Should we, um, talk about what happened in the kitchen earlier?”

Rebecca sits up quickly. God, is her mouth covered in grease? She’s such a mess. “We don’t have to,” she says in a rush. What if they almost kiss again, and then they actually do, and she’s too full of pizza to enjoy it, and then Greg decides that she’s bad at kissing and never wants to do it again? Cause the first time she was barely paying attention. She can barely remember it, and she has tried to, once or twice. She can do better than that.

“Okay,” Greg says slowly. He moves to get up, but then sits down again, frowning. “I just don’t want things to be awkward.”

“They’re not awkward!”

“You’re barely looking at me!” he accuses.

That’s true. She doesn’t want to look at Greg until she’s able to think about how they almost kissed in the kitchen without feeling flushed and warm and uncomfortable. Or even better, if she could just not think about how they almost kissed in the kitchen at all.

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable here,” Greg continues. “I –”

“We really don’t have to talk about it,” Rebecca interrupts. “We spent a lot of time together; there’s tension; it’s fine; we can pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Right. Except –”

“Nope, it’s fine. Hey, I’m going to go to bed. It’s late! It’s – woah,” she says dramatically, checking her phone and standing up quickly. “It’s after 8pm. You know, my grandmother always said ‘early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise’. Wow, have you ever thought about how many proverbs use the word ‘man’ instead of person?”

“Rebecca.”

She’s almost out of the room. “I guess that’d mess up the rhyme scheme though. ‘Makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise’ doesn’t sound right.”

“Rebecca!”

 

And then she’s in her room, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it. She barely gets any sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning Greg is up before her. She double-takes, and he pushes a cup of coffee in her direction.

“Good morning,” he says. He looks awake. He’s dressed for the day, too. That isn’t the shirt he was wearing yesterday, because that one was green. Rebecca likes it when he wears green. It makes the colour of his eyes a bit different. “I have to run an errand this morning. For school. I thought I could drop you at work on the way.”

“Oh.”

“We don’t have to talk about anything.”

“Shall we start that now?” she suggests.

Greg grins and clinks his coffee mug against hers.

 

They eat breakfast in silence and she gets ready and then they walk out to his car, and when she turns to lock the door Greg’s doing it. They bump into each other when it seems like Greg can’t decide whether to go to the driver’s side or get her door for her.

 

“You can pick the music if you want,” Greg tells her when they get into his car. He proffers an AUX cable.

“Ooh!” Rebecca says, pointing at him. “You broke the silence! You lose!”

Greg pulls a cartoon face of horror. “Oh no, and the stakes were so high!”

“Yeah I know, cooking me dinner for a week? Wow, you really shouldn’t have kept upping the ante when you knew you were so bad at this.”

“It’s the Gambling Anonymous people. They’re a bad influence.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Greg does actually end up cooking her dinner. Not every night that week, because he has work one night and school another, but the other five he does. The first time he sets the table and they sit opposite one another uneasily.

“This looks great,” she offers.

Greg laughs. “This was a terrible idea. I don’t know what I was thinking. Do you want to eat in front of the tv?”

“God, yes.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Here’s the thing: her moving in with Greg? They barely discussed any of this. She never even said how long she’d need to stay. It was just going to be the couple weeks Greg’s dad was in the hospital, but now that he has to stay there longer, it’s kind of open-ended. Whenever Greg gets back from the hospital, and Rebecca asks him about it, he gets closed-off and won’t look at her.

 

Rebecca’s paycheck, it turns out, is still fairly generous, but she’s still going to need to pay bond and a couple month’s rent up front. She’d probably be able to pay for a place by the first of the next month, and maybe even get her car back, and that’s only a couple weeks away. But she’s feeling strangely less rushed about it than she would have thought. It’s not possible to feel grateful and indebted and awkward all the time, and somewhere in the last few weeks being roommates with Greg has just started feeling normal.

 

Just a different kind of normal than she’s had before – she's lived alone for awhile. She thought she’d feel an obligation to brush her hair as soon as she woke up or wear bras when she’s watching tv, and was actually kind of excited that having a witness would force her to make some better choices. And it did, for like a week, and then it got tiring, and then she kept finding Greg asleep on the couch and eating cereal for dinner anyway.

 

Then Rebecca had got back from work on the second week and immediately changed into her pyjamas and joined Greg on the couch and he said, “Pyjama party? Cool.” And then Greg had got up and gone to his room and come back wearing sweatpants. “I hate belts,” he explained.

“Mm,” Rebecca agreed. “I hate bras.”

Greg’s eyes flashed down to her chest, and his face went a little pink when he realised he’d been caught. He’d cleared his throat, and shifted a little awkwardly, and then focused on watching the tv, which was playing ads. And Rebecca should have maybe been mad about it, except she liked it.

 

(It was only fair anyway, because when Greg got up later she definitely checked out his ass.)

 

So like, this, living with Greg, she could do. It’s comfortable.

 

But they still haven’t fought, she realises. It’s been almost a month. She’s never gone this long without fighting with him since they met. He’s probably spent half the time they’ve known each other avoiding her. It makes her nervous – given their track record, this is inevitable, right? And if it’s inevitable, shouldn’t they get it over with? She’s starting to get comfortable. Rebecca can’t quite remember how she spent her evenings before, when it wasn’t just assumed that she and Greg were going to eat dinner together and hang out on the couch. If they’re going to fight and ruin everything, surely it’ll hurt a lot less now than it will later. Rip off the band-aid, right?

 

It’s inevitable because Greg also just knows her, now. He’s seen her do awful things – she’s done some of them to him. There’s no mystique, there’s no illusion that she’s better than she is.

 

And yet he’s still around.

 

He’s still talking to her and asking her stuff and only occasionally complains that she talks too much. When she gets back from work and he’s home he still looks pleased to see her. When she lets herself get provoked into tossing insults at each other he still looks delighted. He still occasionally looks at her with this terrifying earnest expression that makes her scared that she is going to disappoint him horrifically any day now.

 

 

* * *

 

 

So then she tries to start fights.

 

It’s not a particularly mature idea, she knows. Maybe if she talked to someone about it she would have realised how stupid it was, but she didn’t, because she can’t talk to Paula about Greg. And it’s not like she’s going to talk to _Greg_ about it, so she doesn’t talk to anyone, and then tries to be disagreeable and snippy and confrontational, which is so worryingly easy it feels like she’s regressed ten years.

 

Greg notices.

 

“What are you doing?” Greg asks, cocking his head to the side. He doesn’t even sound angry anymore, just suspicious. “Are you _trying_ to start a fight?”

“No! Yes. Who cares! Come on, let’s do this,” she waves her clenched fists in the air like an old-timey boxer.

Greg looks incredulous. “Do you want to physically fight me? Rebecca, no.”

“No, oh my god, no. Just yell at me and tell me I’m weird and that I need to leave.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“No! I just think we should get this over with.”

“Get _what_ over with?”

“That thing we do, where I screw up, and you get mad, and then we fight.”

“Yeah, see, that’d really mess with this thing that I’m doing where I’m trying not to fight with you,” Greg says. He steps closer, putting his hands on her shoulders. “It’s been nice. I like not fighting with you.”

“Oh.”

  
Greg smiles at her fondly. “Honestly, Bunch, I thought Harvard would have been better at filtering out the dummies from their admissions pool. How did you slip past?”

“Y’know, making fun of Harvard just comes across as bitter and sad.”

“Joke’s on you, Bunch, because I am bitter and sad. When I was applying to schools the West Covina guidance counsellor suggested I lower my standards because none of their students had ever even applied to Harvard before.”

“My mother started telling me when I was ten that she would emancipate herself from me if I didn’t get in,” Rebecca counters.

“I didn’t think emancipation worked that way.”

“It doesn’t, but I hadn’t gone to law school yet, so I didn’t know.”

“So which of us had it worst? Who wins?” Greg asks.

“Neither of us,” Rebecca says. “We have both definitely lost.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning Rebecca is brushing her teeth in her pyjamas and wandering around aimlessly while she counts out three minutes when it occurs to her that she likes Greg. She almost walks into a door.

 

 

* * *

 

  

And then, goddamnit, Rebecca just spends way too much time thinking about Greg.

 

Greg, of course, is not on Facebook, but she has pictures of him on her phone, and she stares at them. She tries to look at them objectively.

 

This is not when they tried to cook breakfast together, and Greg assigned her egg poaching, and she ruined three eggs before he grabbed her hands and wrestled her away from the egg carton and said he’d do it himself. This is a frowning man looking ridiculous in an apron, standing in front of a stove and trying to monitor every element of Eggs Benedict by himself. This man is pretty objectively cute, she will admit. He has a bit of stubble and untidy hair and a wrinkled tshirt, and he looks dishevelled in a way that’s kind of working for him, and also making Rebecca wish she had done that to him.

 

She flicks through some photos: Greg frowning; Greg frowning again; another of Greg frowning. There’s different iterations. Confused, there’s a couple of those. Concentrating, like the one with the eggs. And then exasperated, which is most of them, and Rebecca can think back to when she tried to take them, when Greg had been laughing at something, and he had looked cute, and then she took her phone out to try immortalise that moment and he frowned at her instead.

 

Oh my god, she’s an idiot. How did she miss this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there'll be one more chapter of this left and I aim to have it up before the next episode airs on April 11. Thank you for your comments and kudos and subscriptions.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating has jumped up to explicit now for this final chapter!

Rebecca takes a couple of days to make sure. She’s trying to be less impulsive, which is why she didn’t turn abruptly from the door she almost collided with and walk straight into Greg’s room and wake him up and climb on him. She wanted to. She entertains that fantasy to make sure that’s something she wants – draws it out a little more each time. And yeah, she does want that.

 

It’s weird, hanging out with Greg and desiring him and not saying or doing anything about it. It feels chaste and Victorian. Like Pride and Prejudice, but the Keira Knightley version, where the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife, and she wonders if he can feel that tension, too. It makes things awkward again like they were when she first moved in.

 

So on the third day, she resolves to Take Action.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Heather. Is Greg around?”

“Nope. Is that all?”

“Oh,” Rebecca says. She contemplates leaving. She’d really only come to hang out with Greg. But she can hang out with Heather! She and Heather are friends! Or were friends, at least. “Can I get a beer, I guess?”

“Yeah, you’re going to have to get more specific.”

“Whatever’s closest. Wait, no. Whatever’s cheapest.”

“Ah, the Home Base special.”

 

Heather uncaps a bottle and places it in front of her, then hesitates.

“You know, honestly I don’t know why I’m interfering, because I really don’t care, but you leading Greg on all the time is getting a little out of control.”

“What?”

“This playing house thing. Like, I know the dude is a bit of a masochist, but still.”

“I’m not leading him on,” Rebecca takes a deep breath. “I like him too.”

Heather cocks her head to the side, raising her eyebrows. “Huh.”

“Is this the part where you tell me not to hurt him?”

“Oh no, not at all. You do whatever you like.”

Rebecca picks up her beer. “Cheers.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rebecca doesn’t actually see Greg that night. He’s out late and so she just goes to bed. She doesn’t hear him come in, even though she feels like she spends hours wondering if she’s about to make a mistake, so she must have fallen asleep fairly quickly.

 

That gives her a whole extra day to doubt herself. She almost brings it up with Paula, too. Rebecca’s been avoiding discussing her love life entirely, and she can tell Paula feels left out. It’s not like her abrupt subject changes whenever Paula brings up Josh or Greg are subtle. But she doesn’t want or need opinions. Rebecca knows enough: she likes Greg, and she wants him, and being around him and wanting him and pretending like she doesn’t is excruciating. It’s making her act strangely. She knows this because Greg called her on it, and she had just stammered and said things were fine and then ran away, because Rebecca is willing to work on her issues, but one at a time, thank you.

 

 

* * *

 

 

So it’s the fourth day when she kisses him, when she’s almost starting to get used to the tension. Hey, she’s had unrequited crushes before. And she’s had crushes with obstacles that kept them apart. This is a little different.

 

Rebecca’s so sure it’s mutual, and them staying apart is kind of contrived, just his nescience and her hesitance, but still. She could probably manage to get through the two or so weeks until she’ll be able to afford to get her own place, and then she could just avoid Greg for awhile, which would hurt his feelings, and then he’d be mad at her, and whatever feelings she has for him would be moot, then, in the face of his anger. Rebecca’s definitely made more adult decisions than that, before, but maybe it’s worth considering…

 

No.

 

And then she’s crossing the room, shrugging off her inertia and striding towards Greg like she’s never been so sure of anything in her life, which isn’t true, but hey, she can deal with that later, and her hands are on Greg’s shoulders, and he is turning towards her and she is sliding her hands to the back of his neck, pulling him down to her and rising onto her toes and kissing him.

 

And his hands go to her waist, and then he slides one hand under the circle of her arms to cup her face, and she thinks he’s about to push her away, but he’s not, he’s pulling her closer, his mouth opening under hers, his tongue in her mouth, their bodies pressed together in the kitchen, and yes, yes, this was the right decision, this was worth waiting for.

 

"Wait, wait," Greg mumbles against her lips. He pulls back a little, pressing a hand gently against her shoulder. "I don't know if I can go through with this."

Rebecca feels like a bucket of cold water has been dumped on her head. “Oh.”

"Yeah, without you crying I'm not sure if I can get into it. Could you tear up a little to get me going?"

 

The relief that floods through her is so achingly strong she is speechless for a moment, and then he is kissing her again, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth so they can’t even kiss properly. They’re both just smiling with their noses nudging one another, and then Greg’s hand on her waist moves down, over her hip, and pulls her body to align with his. She gasps, and Greg seizes on her open mouth like he’s been waiting for it his whole life. He fits his entire body against hers, folding himself around her and bending down as she reaches up for him so he envelops her, his hands and scent, the open plaid shirt he’s wearing curtaining around her.

 

Now that they’ve done this, she’s amazed that it took so long. Not kissing him is unbearable, how did she manage?

 

His hand on her hip slides down to the hem of her dress, and she pulls her mouth from his to kiss his neck. His fingers are so hot as he trails them under her dress, and drags his hand up the back of her thigh.

 

And oh god, she’s not prepared for this! When was the last time she brushed her teeth? What does she taste like? Shit, when did she last shave? Are her legs stubbly? Are her other parts stubbly? There is no way she’s wearing cute underwear.

“Rebecca, I can hear you thinking. Are you okay?”

“No, it’s just, maybe I should go, like, shower, and put on something nice before we do this?”

“We could go shower together if you want,” Greg says, voice low. “But I don’t think it matters what you’re wearing because I’m going to take it off you as soon as I can.”

 

Oh _god_. She steps back and pulls Greg with her, manhandling him as they rush to his room. She pushes him back onto his bed and she pulls her top off and climbs over him, straddling his waist. He leans up to kiss her, his wide hands spanning the width of her back.

“Oh my god, _finally_ ,” he sighs.

“Wait,” Rebecca pulls back, puts her hand on his chest. “What?”

“I’ve been waiting for this for – you know, it’ll get sad if I tell you exactly how long. But a while.”

“Like, me taking my shirt off specifically?” she waves a hand over her body and his eyes follow the movement, coming back up to meet her eyes a little slowly as he looks at her breasts. He shifts a little under her.

“Can we talk about it later?” he asks, his voice rough, pressing his mouth against hers.

 

She kind of wants to talk about it now. This new tone in Greg’s voice gets her hot. But she wants to kiss him, too. And she wants to ride him, and she wants his mouth on her clit, and she wants him to fuck her with his fingers while he sucks on her tits – she wants everything from him, and wants it all, right now, right this second. She feels so hungry with it she can’t ever imagine being satisfied.

 

She wants to tell him this too, but groans into the kiss instead, and he rolls them until she’s half-pinned against his mattress, his thigh solid between hers.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Greg's hand on her shoulder pulls her back into him and slides around to the back of her neck, cradling her head as he leans over her. And then they are lying back on the bed, Greg's leg between her thighs, his chest a soothing weight against her, a wide hand on her waist.

 

Here's the thing: they've kissed before. They kissed a lot, actually, but Rebecca hadn't really been paying attention. She's thought about it a lot since, parsing her memories of the easy way they fit together. Greg receptive and responsive. His hands on her waist. But that's all she had: that she'd been pleasantly surprised at their chemistry, the synchrony, and it had been nice.

 

This is different. 

 

This kiss is not easy, or nice. It is demanding, consuming, a little desperate. Greg bites at her lower lip and makes a soft sound in the back of his throat when she does the same to him. His fingers dig into her side, and when she tugs gently at his shoulder he moves over her in an instant, grinds his hips down against hers and breaks the kiss to breathe heavily against her neck. She tilts her head back and he drags his teeth along her throat, groans in response to the audible hitch in her breath. He wraps a hand around the back of her knee and hitches it over his hip, slides it down her thigh and punctuates it with a grind of his hips. She doesn't even realise that she's swearing until Greg is hissing a breath in response. Rebecca pulls him back up to kiss her, more than a little messy, and he breaks the kiss again, leaning heavily on his shoulder, his other hand tugging at her hair until she's looking at him. 

 

"Rebecca, please. Tell me you want this." 

His voice is wrecked, unlike she's heard before. The bottom just about drops out of her stomach. 

 

"Please, Greg," she says, unsteady. She doesn't know what she's asking for, her brain a mess of white noise and need. "Please," she begs again. Does he not know how much she wants him? How can he not know? She has to tell him. He has to know.

 

Her leg had been hitched up by his hip, and she lifts the other to hold him in place. He’s so hard, and he ruts down a little like he can’t help it, and leans down to kiss her. She almost lets him; god, she likes kissing him, but makes herself push at his chest. He looks at her confused, and she cups his face.

“Greg,” she starts. He’s nudging his face against her hand, like it isn’t enough. “I want you. I want you to fuck me.”

His pupils are swollen with desire, his eyes so wide. He’s pushing his hips down into hers like he can’t help it.

“I need you, Greg. If you don’t fuck me I think I might die.”

 

He kisses her bruisingly hard.

 

He moves to kiss her neck, right below her ear, and pulls back. It takes her a moment to realise he’s talking. She can barely hear over her heartbeat in her ears and the wet sounds of him kissing at every bit of skin he’s revealing.

“What was that?”

Greg looks up at her, his mouth halfway to her cunt, his hands on her breasts. “You’ve got a dirty mouth. I was hoping you did.”

 

God, they’re going to have to come back to that later. She needs to know every dirty thought he’s had about her, every fantasy. She wants to make them real for him.

 

When he pulls her underwear down his hand cups her for half a second. She is so wet, she can tell, and Greg pushes a finger inside her and groans her name. He only thrusts his finger inside her a couple times before he adds another, and she arches back on the bed. She fumbles with his bedside drawer. She finds some lube, makes a mental note that that’s there, too, and finds a strip of foil that she throws at Greg. It catches him in the face, and he looks up from kissing her inner thigh.

“Now,” she instructs him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Don't stop, Greg, please," Rebecca is begging, her hands clawing at his back, and she is almost there, tension building in her muscles. 

"Fuck, Rebecca," he swears, his face buried in her neck, fucking her hard and deep and fast and then he shudders and stops, panting against her skin. She feels a hot flush of want and frustration, and he pulls out and collapses beside her.

"Sorry, I – sorry."

Greg looks embarrassed, skirting her gaze, his ears pink and his pale chest flushed. He looks like a Renaissance painting, all soft red mouth and curly hair and blushing pink skin. He sits up to knot the condom and put it in the bin and she bites back a gasp as he turns his back to her, at the raw red lines of her fingers over his shoulders, down his spine.

"Can I..." He starts and sits at the end of bed, his fingers pressing meaningfully at her bent knees. 

"Oh," she says, and lets her knees fall apart as he settles between them, ducking his head eagerly to lick at her. She must taste like latex but he doesn't hesitate, stretching an arm up to cup her breast as the other hand parts her gently. He goes slowly with it, making little sounds of encouragement when she gasps or moans. When she gets a little frustrated and needs more he is quick to press a finger inside her, sliding easily where his cock just was, and she feels a rush of heat when she thinks about that, about him fucking her, and how she wants to do it again, climb on top of him on the couch in the living room and ride him. Fuck. She looks down at him, his head buried between her thighs, catches a glimpse of the marks she left on his back, the ones she didn't even realise she was leaving, and her orgasm takes her by surprise, knocking the air from her lungs until she has to push Greg away because it's too much, it's too much. 

 

When she opens her eyes Greg is leaning on one arm beside her, his hand hovering where her hair clings to the sweat on her forehead, and he pulls his hand away quickly.

"I kinda want to kiss you. Is that okay?" he asks, and she swipes her thumb at his chin in response, where his cherubic face is glistening with her, and curls her hand around the back of his neck to pull him down to her. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

They’re lying in bed and both a little breathless and they’re naked. Distractingly naked. It’s such a delight to see Greg outside of his usual pants and tshirt combination that she has no resilience to his shoulders and chest. She can’t not touch them, mapping out his freckles, pressing her hands to his skin, always so hot, skritches his little bit of chest hair, his dusky nipples. She’ll absent-mindedly touch him when they talk, her fingers stroking patterns on his skin, but then it always gets too much for him and he grabs her wrists and asks her for something.

 

Greg does that: he’s direct about what he wants. He’ll look at her in the eyes and rub his erection against her thigh and ask her if he can fuck her, if she’ll suck his dick, can he taste her. It makes her vision go a little white when he does that. He has this lilting, lyrical quality to his voice most of the time, especially when they’re joking together, but when they’re in bed his voice is low, and when it’s low he talks slowly too. He articulates so clearly: a word like _fuck_ is dragged out with its fricative and velar stop. When he says _cunt_ it pops. _Kuh-nn-tuh_. It bounces off the walls. Rebecca could listen to him talk dirty to her for the rest of her life and never get sick of it.

 

He’d be so good at sending her dirty texts, she’s sure of it. She kind of wants to get back to work on Monday so she can get a filthy text from him in a meeting. But it’s so much better here, with him warm and solid against her in his bed, feeling his breath skitter across her skin as he tells her what he wants to do to her.

 

Their bodies work well and they barely stutter finding a rhythm together, and Greg is so responsive and vocal and direct. It’s so easy, this first lust-soaked part of being together, ignoring the outside world and their phones and never opening the curtains, until Greg says he wants to see the sunlight on her skin and they laze on the sheets, sweating in the heat blazing through the windows.

 

By Sunday she’s feeling a little fucked raw. Greg’s so apologetic, even though it was Rebecca who kept making it rough. He had tried to keep things slow, the night before, kissing her, his chest pressed down against hers. Greg was good at it, too. Even when things were getting too heavy to keep kissing, and they were panting into each other’s mouths, her ankles crossed behind his back, he kept fucking into her slow and deep. It was consuming, and possessive, and a bit too romantic. She made them swap positions and straddled him instead, planting her hands on his chest so he couldn’t sit up to kiss her, speeding up the rhythm so she was almost bouncing on his cock, his hands on her breasts.

 

So when they wake up on Sunday and Greg is hard, she dodges his morning-breath good morning kiss and slides down his body. Rebecca makes sure she looks up at him as she licks a stripe up his cock before taking the head into her mouth, and sure enough Greg is looking down at her, eyes wide, before his head falls back against the pillow with a groan.

 

There’s a point she’s noticed when they’re fucking when he stops talking. After the first time, their bodies are in sync, so usually that’s when Rebecca’s too close to coming herself to hear what Greg’s saying or not saying. She wants to hear it now without any distractions, just the soundtrack of her hand squelching with saliva at the base of his dick and the pop of suction when she pulls back off the head. It’s her name that he’s moaning, she realises with a jolt of heat. God, if she had a free hand she’d be rubbing at herself, but Greg has taken her left hand into his and is gripping it tight as he begs her not to stop and tells her, _that’s good, fuck, that’s so good_. He warns her when he’s about to come, and she tries to stay constant, and Greg lets go of her hand and swears and gasps, his hands fisting the sheets. She swallows but it’s still messy. All that saliva. He follows her to the bathroom that they’ve shared for a month and a half, swatting her on the ass as she leans across him for her toothbrush. She catches Greg watching the way her breasts swing a little as she brushes her teeth, and he winks at her in the mirror. He doesn’t look embarrassed this time. More like he’s planning something for later.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Stick Around](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528539) by [klb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klb/pseuds/klb)




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